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Yeah, I don't know how people are so shocked that I'm gay. People who have seen my shows before are shocked. I feel like most people in the audience just looked up at me and were like "Yeah. That man has never had sex with a woman."
Just realized it's because most of my audience hadn't either. For them, it must have been like looking into a mirror. They looked into it and thought: if only I could be rich. See, when they talk about their fake girlfriend and everyone laughs, they aren't getting paid for it. For me though, it was more of a "it's definitely normal for a grown man to use 3-in-1 shampoo," and an "I think I'm doing pretty well for myself" when I saw another 40 year old balding dude who definitely uses the 5-in-1.
Now that I have connected with the gay community, and by that I really just mean one person because I still don't leave the house. But when I got a boyfriend.... See now that's the part that should have shocked people, not the gay thing.... Anyways, he came over to my apartment, went to go take a shower, saw my 3-in-1 and left. It's a hard way to end a relationship. It really was a 'him or me' situation so I had to end it. My longest relationship.... But now that I'm paying the high price, paying for 3 bathing products instead of one, I'm getting fucked like crazy. I'm just saying. Before when I came up here and looked at my audience I felt like it was a fuckin AA meeting. "Hi I'm Richie, and don't let this ketchup-stained Hawaiian shirt fool you, I haven't felt the warm embrace of another in a long time." Now I feel like a motivational speaker. "Hi I'm Richie, and don't let this ketchup-stained Hawaiian shirt fool you, I have seen another person naked."
Anyways, now that I’m done bragging about getting fucked, it's time to move on. I was walking down the street the other day, and this dude came up to me. He was like, bro is that a ring on your finger. Like yeah, it is. He was shocked. He looked at me like, you, the guy who made a joke about his girlfriend walking in on him jacking it, just full on cranking it, to her friends facebook page got married. First of all, I was not full on cranking it. That was a woman’s facebook page, and I’m not an animal. Second of all, that was ghost written. But, yeah. His shock was well placed. I mean look at me: I absolutely did not get married. I got gay married. There’s a difference.
My husband, Eddie, and I got married in June. Thank you, thank you, I love the applause. He’s gotta get something for marrying me. We could wax poetically about how we are in love. And yeah sure, I thought we were gonna get married for that reason, too. I put out the option, and he was just like “Yeah. Sure. That’s a good idea.” Anyways, he agreed to get married because he needed a new medical proxy.
Before you get too bummed out, it was a real level of trust. He’s a risk analyst and he sanatizes his hands before he touches the cup his pills come in. He doesn’t touch the pills or his mouth. But he sure does load up on that methanol… the type of alcohol for rubbing. Yeah. So the trust. Just so much of it. If he goes into a coma, I get to pull the plug. It's an agreement we have. I have to literally pull it. No one is allowed to kill him but me.
And also, he had to put a new phone number on those forms. You have no idea how awkward it was when his ex wife showed up to physical therapy. First off, she asked if he drove there. Like no, that is terrifying. He and I were in a house that collapsed on us and also saw a clown, so I know what scary is. His driving tops that list. But I wasn’t gonna tell her that? Fuck no.
The whole thing wasn’t nearly as awkward as when your wife shows up to see you in the hospital with a stab wound in the face as a result of going back to your hometown and you have to tell her that you’re gay. But I didn't have to be in the room for that. Yeah, it’s a boring story—gotta move on before I bore you all to death with that one. Anyways, you get divorced, you move in with your buddy, one day you put a finger up his ass, and it’s all history.
Speaking of history: You know, I’ve had jobs other than this. I didn’t always just stand on stage to be laughed at. I had a more demeaning job. I was a cashier at a local target when I was younger. It was great prep for this. It was the same fucking job but I was making minimum wage. You stand there telling the same jokes over and over again because the next customer hasn’t heard it yet. If they laugh, it’s all good but if they don’t, it’s real fucking awkward. But either way, it doesn’t really matter because you’re really just paid to show up.
That’s right, I’m just paid to be here baby. This is prepaid from the second you guys purchased your seats online. I could take a shit on stage, and it would not matter. But I won’t. Because the awkwardness of when customers didn’t laugh at my “Woah, 4 dollars. Big spender, aye?” jokes still haunts me. I need you all to be laughing—seriously, you all need to start laughing, loudly.
Luckily, I did move on to bigger and better jobs. Occasionally, some where I was paid to actually do shit. I did a lot of writing projects back in the day. A couple of years ago, one of my old coworkers from a writing job came to one of my shows. He came up at the end and asked, “You used to be funny. What happened?”
And yeah, fucking rude. But what sucked dick about the whole situation was that I couldn’t even blame my straight guy persona because I was in the closet the whole time I worked with him, too.
I really should have gone into acting. Because everyone in that writers’ room thought I was straight. It was so bad that when I made a joke involving gay activities, they called me homophobic. I just brought up something gay and they just looked at me like, ‘whoa, don’t go there.” I make a lot of jokes about my dick, and way more about my dick getting sucked. So sexual jokes are standard procedure for me.
I made a joke about gay sex, something about just pounding into a guy. And the whole room turned to me and went, “That was kinda fucked up Rich. Don’t be homophobic.” And like, okay, sometimes a graphic sex joke just doesn’t hit.
I made another joke, decently thought out this time, about gay cowboys being good at riding. Which is true. I’ve tried it. And, I shit you not, someone turned around and went: “C'mon man. some of us have gay family members. It’s not appreciated.”
Don’t get me wrong. There was something really flattering about how heterosexual they thought I was, made me feel real safe there. Awe... was that a bummer. Good. Keep listening, it gets worse.
There was this one guy there who, I swear to God, looked so fucking gay. The way he talked, dressed, carried himself. He said he had a girlfriend, but so did I. I figured, if anyone can keep it discrete, it’s him. So we’re talking, we’re flirting. It’s getting heated. This otter was about to go down on me (or so I thought). And I looked at him and went, “Jason, you are a stunningly handsome man. I would love for you to [redacted]”. The producers said I couldn’t repeat that shit on TV. But I can paint the scene. I had him up against a wall and told him what I wanted to do with him.
Jason looks at me, and he goes, “Richie, dude, I really don’t think desiring another man is something to make fun of.”
Anyway, he moved on from the writers’ room, into the big leagues. I try to keep up with the careers of old friends. I’m a good friend. I watched one of his specials. Yeah. I saw his set about “going down on a rocking twink”, and I was so pissed. Like for years if I made a joke about gay sex, people called me homophobic. But now the straight man’s allowed to do it?
So yeah. The otter didn't go down on me. But his wife is much nicer than the wife of the last guy I fucked.
I feel like me and my husband have this really special bond. Like more profound than the laws of matrimony. We both fucked the same person, like independently of each other. The people you cum in. It's a bond. Yeah, I fucked his mom, and he married her.
Ah, heterosexual marriage. There are so many male comedians that come up on stage and bitch about their wife or their ex-wife, and thats one of the big problems with being gay: I have no wife. It’s a real disadvantage in the comedy biz, so I asked my husband if I could borrow his. He told me I was a misogynist but also to go for it because she is the goddamn worst
She called me a whore one time, and it's like first off, I don't know what kind of action you think I get. Like it’s just married people sex, like the church allows it... I mean with, uhh, straight people. But I really didn't get where the “whore” thing was coming from until I realized that she didn’t have normal married people sex. So compared to her, I'm reliving my college frat days, getting railed every night. And on one hand I’m flattered, and on the other I’m not because I think she only called me that because she forgot my name
Yeah, that's the biggest difference between her and my husband’s mom. She never forgot my name because she was screaming it every night
I make a lot of jokes about fucking mothers. Have since I was a kid. The number of jokes I make about fucking women have gone down, but I can’t seem to rid myself of them completely.
You know, I don’t have a therapist. Yeah, now this thing makes a whole lot more sense, doesn’t it? Well, instead of seeing a paid professional for help, I’ve decided to make other people pay to see me hash it out on my own. It’s time to tell you one of my more vague traumas: being a closeted man until age 41.
It’s really hard subleasing an apartment as a closeted gay man. I go on tour enough that I don’t want my place to sit around and get nasty, and instead of hiring a maid, I decided to have someone pay me to be my live-in maid instead. Sensing a pattern here?
There’s a real process to something as delicate as finding a tenant. First, I have to find a way to avoid people knowing I live with a man without making the renter sign an NDA agreement. I’ve rented from someone who made me sign an NDA before, when I was in my 20s, and that’s a trauma I can’t joke about on stage. Literally. The things I did to live in a place with a toilet and shower in New York. This is L.A. and the rent manages to be somehow cheaper, so whatever poor bastard would be willing to live somewhere like that, I do not want living with me.
Now the problem becomes how to keep quiet a tenant who can talk. I’m desperately closetted at this point, which means I embrace all gender roles with the same fervor of a 12 year old calling people slurs on XBox Live. Women have sleepovers as adults, but men, we don’t. Following the bro code, I can’t explain away having a man spend the night. No. One night stands need to clear the house ASAP. Blow a load, then blow this popsicle stand.
Except, I’m in my late 30’s early 40’s. I pass out after sex, so I can’t enforce this rule. I gotta go to the other dudes house.
That’s a long winded explanation to get to this story: One time I met a dude at a gay bar, and we’re leaving through the back entrance. Yeah, feel free to read into that one. I’m doing the whole “oh, well, my place is a mess” thing. It’s usually pretty effective, but this man has me beat. He looks me in the eyes and says, “I live with my mother.”
I’m still down to fuck him.
Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t some 20 year old twink; he was in his mid 30’s. I’m not the pathetic one, he is. We’re at a crossroads here. We can’t go back to my apartment, and I’m not going to be seen walking into a hotel room with a man.
Luckily, it’s L.A. I know some gay allies. They didn’t necessarily know they were my allies, but they were about to be. Nothing turns me on like a little crime. You ever been hate-crimed and popped a boner? It’s okay, no gay bashing tonight; we just pulled a little B&E, Breaking and Entering.
I pulled out my golden credit card, not to slip the lock, just to prove that I had one. Couldn’t have a man thinking I was a broke bitch just because I didn’t take him to a hotel. For the practicalities of the break in, I used the bobby pins I keep in my wallet and picked the lock to my friend Sam’s house. Ate some ass on her couch.
The “her” part got you? Misogynists. Don’t let Hollywood fool you: There are women in stories.
As a feminist, I decided men belong in the kitchen and fucked a man on her kitchen counter. Again, as a feminist, I cleaned her kitchen. Then I stole a bottle of decent wine, more than $8 at Trader Joe’s. I deserved it. I cleaned her kitchen for free, like what am I her maid? And then I stole a 20 off her counter to pay for a cab to take the dude home, and called an Uber for myself. Uber X of course.
Don’t worry about the 20. She has a house in L.A., actual L.A. not the burbs 20 miles out. She can spare $20. The thing I forgot about rich people though, they have cameras all over their houses.
Sam calls me up the next day like “For fucks sake, Richie. We talked about this.” So now she has my third sex tape. Shits fucked you know. We don’t want to get lawyers too involved. So now I have to buy her 2 bottles of $400 wine and give her back the 20 bucks. She promises not to release my sex tape, I promise not to release the pictures of her buttplug collection I took and let her keep the sextape. Mutually assured destruction truly is the most low cost NDA, I see why America and Russia did it that way, good to keep costs down in the government affairs.
Sam also refused to give me a key to her place.
I don’t do that shit anymore. I’m a changed man post coming out. I have a husband now, and he’s my roommate. It would be a little hard to hide the whole gay thing from him. The real problem is some people can’t forgive me for my past sins. That’s why me and my husband aren’t allowed in her house.
Really uncool because she has fucked a man in mine, and I still invite her over.
I’m not rich enough to have cameras. I found out because my roommate texted me to “stop fornicating with that chick so loud, bro.”
I knew it wasn’t me because I have never fucked a woman in my life, but I needed the clout, so I just texted back, “Sorry, dude. The pussy is just too good.”
I got so good at lying, man. Sometimes I miss it. The stakes are so much lower now that I’m out of the closet. I have to actively search for things to lie about. The best I could come up with was about a year ago when I told my publicist I wouldn’t re-download Twitter, and even that was short lived. She found out two weeks later when I had to call her because I thought I accidentally posted a dick pic.
I got on Twitter because I think it’s funny and I like to see people who have worse problems than me. Every once in a while I just go look at someone who’s broke. I’m kidding, when I do that, it’s solidarity. No, I go on and watch people get in fights over cartoon characters.
But sometimes people tweet me shit on there, and I have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Other people tweet me shit thinking I won’t know what they’re talking about, specifically teenagers. Teen’s go on there like, “That man is 40, let's make fun of him.” Actually, I support that. It's an admirable pastime. But they don’t do cyberbullying right. They send me the word bussy, as if I won’t know what that is.
I had a fucking Grindr, dude. I know what a bussy is. I don’t know what the fuck a Rhony is though. You guys are choosing the wrong gay subculture to bully me with.
As a 41 year old, I’ve always got that mix of pride and shame in me when I understand a meme. As a half Jew half Catholic, I also just have that in general. Always nice to put a face to the name when it comes to guilt though, which is why I enjoy the drunk girl in a bathroom meme.
It takes me back to my cocaine fueled past life, but like when I could get it for free on account of being hot. Fuck, I forgot there are Youtube videos of me from like 2002. Can’t sell that lie. Stop looking at me like that, I already said I have a Twitter. I know what you all think of my supple twink body.
You know, drunk girls in the bathroom have never called me a “sloppy bear with a receding hairline that comedy can’t fix”. Drunk girls in the bathroom fix my hair. Or, did, when I had hair.
Back in my 20s when I washed my hair with bar soap because I was broke and not because I had depression, I also took a lot of coke. You know, because I had depression. I got it by weaseling myself into rich people's parties by pretending to pick someone up as a designated driver.
I didn’t actually own a car, so I would go to the front door with a lanyard in my hand and fake car keys on it saying, “Fuck, do you know where Brian is. He just called me, and he sounded fucking blackout.” They always let me in because they didn’t want anyone puking on their rug. Which is also why they also always kicked me out...
Occasionally, I would go into a bathroom looking for blow, then find out they actually were doing lines off some girls chest in the living room. That’s not really my scene. One time though, it was a drunk girl in the bathroom that broke the news to me. And she looked me in the eyes with a mother’s love and said, “It’s okay.”
For the first time that night, I realized that maybe that something was wrong. But she saw me, all of me, and knew that it could be alright. She reached her arms out to me from the bathroom floor, only somewhat smelling like vomit, and I sank down into them.
Abby from one of the Franco brothers’ parties in the early 2002’s, thank you. The love I felt when she held me in her lap and ran her hands through my hair plucking out all the split ends. I sat there and told her about my fear of Paul Bunyon and how I thought it might be a gay thing. She looked at me and she said, “Everyone’s a little gay.”
I stopped doing that around age 30. Not because I stopped doing drugs or anything, just because I had enough face recognition for them to stop letting me in through the door. Apparently I wasn’t wanted because “My comedy sucked” or I “threw up on their bed then slept in it last time.” But I’ll never forget what Abigail said to me that night: “You’ll be. Uh, allowed to get married one day. But until then, people love you right now.” and then she threw up in my hair.
Thank you Abby, you were right. I am allowed to get married. In fact, I’m motherfucking gay married, bitch!
Let’s talk more about my marriage. My dear husband Eddie, I asked him if he wanted to come see my show, and he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I may be a 41 year old man who just finalized his dovorce, but I’m not a cliche.” Which means now I can shit-talk him.
A while ago we were walking down the street, and I trying really hard not to get hit by one of his arm support canes. Don’t worry, he can walk with them. He just likes to hit people with them. It’s gotten to the point where people can’t tell if it's an accident or not. Fuck comedy, thats real talent. But I’m on the stage, and he’s not, so that's networking for you.
I was avoiding getting hit with a cane by my talented husband, and an old coworker of his walked up to us. ‘Cause I guess that’s just what happens now. People walk up to me on the street. They see my shampooed and conditioned hair and are like, oh that guy isn’t homeless, I can make eye contact.
He walks up to us and he’s like. “Shit, is that you, Kaspbrak? OH Fuck. You’re Richie Tozier.” And I knew he was thinking Kaspbrak, dude, how is a hypochondriac like you end up with a guy who has a bit about drinking piss for money in college then dropping out? Which I knew because he asked.
The answer is I let him put it in my ass. The old ball and chain never let him do that… I assume. I haven’t actually asked. I’ll call him after the show.
Anyways, I’m sure his old coworker gets it. He looked like a 2 in the pink 1 in the stink man. But yeah, this guy figures okay Eddie can talk about nasty stuff now. And now that they don’t have to walk into the same office everyday, there’s no shame or repercussions in getting some shit off his chest. So he says, “Yeah. I’m sorry for pretending to vomit in your cubicle, bro”
Gotta support my husband. Can’t allow for workplace bullying or whatever—I don’t know; I don’t have a workplace. So I’m standing behind him, just really gritting my teeth, mouth shut tighter than my ass, can’t open it without laughing. And without turning around, Eddie’s just like “You can laugh.” Resigned to it. And if he tells me I can do something, I do it.
Apparently, the coworker thinks I’m funny, which also explains why he and Eddie didn’t like each other. Eds knows for a fact that I’m not. When I finished laughing, I had to break it to the dude. “Yeah. Sorry man, can't get you free tickets. I'm counting your ticket price as Eddie's half of the rent, and he needs to cough it up.”
But if you’re here Greg, thanks for the material. An extra thanks if you don't make me pay royalties. Someone has to cover Eds’ portion of the rent. Also, I’m sorry he yelled at you, except I’m not. It was hilarious. Listen, before feeling bad for the guy, he worked with Eds for quite the few years. He knew it was gonna happen. And he pointed out his facial scar. Like stab wounds also leave some emotional wounds, ya know.
Let’s talk more about Greg getting yelled at. With the whole fake vomiting thing—because I’m a calm, collected guy—I stopped laughing after a quick 10 minutes or so. Which meant that he could stop analyzing the risk of me choking on air right there in front of him. Put away the mental calculator of how much could Eds sue for if I died laughing at that joke. And he looks at Eddie’s face and goes, “Dude what the fuck happened to you.”
And Eddie just rips into the guy, screaming in the middle of a family park. “Yeah, asshole, I got stabbed. What about it? I had to hike through fucking grey water and a sewer with an open wound.” Which like yeah, that’s what happens when you go back to your hometown. Serial killers stab you in the face.
I guess Greg doesn’t visit his parents enough because he just loses it. Like how did this guy, who couldn’t handle fake gagging go in a sewer. Just by seeing Eddie walking with me, he was confused. Wait until he hears about how a condemned house collapsed on us. Watching those gears turn in his head, it was really a “how much can a guy change” moment. Except, Eddie’s still yelling, which I know for a fact he did at work because he did it the entire time we were growing up, too. Obviously, this guy is still the same. That’s the thing with coworkers, sometimes you just don’t know people.
My favorite part of this story is how Eds didn’t even have to turn around to let me laugh. What can I say? I’m a sap. That’s the best part of a relationship, being known. I spent so many years trying to be unkowable, but my last girlfriend just told me I was unfuckable. Learning experiences.
After that meeting with his old coworker, I decided I wanted to be known. Since he brought it up already, I went all in with the piss bit, gotta put it all out there. Also, recycling a bit is exactly the green change my business needs.
Here goes: I have done really embarrassing and frankly disgusting things for money and also my peers' approval, but mostly money. Still do, just not as often. One time in college, I drank piss. Got a full Hamilton. That's right, 10 whole bucks, which back in 1994 dollars. That’s worth around $16.14 today! The week after I dropped out. Completely unrelated!
I told my husband, risk analyst and germaphobe, about this, and he refused to kiss me. No matter how much I disinfect my tongue. By the way, mouthwash? That shit hits harder than McDonald’s Sprite, or whatever the fuck kids are taking now instead of heroin.
Now, I use mouthwash. The things he’s done for me: first conditioner, now mouthwash. Growing up, my father was a dentist. I don’t know what he does now... plays golf or some shit that retired people do. I would say that me admitting to only now using mouthwash in this show would disappoint him, but I disappointed him years ago when I decided to be a stand-up comedian, and I know for a fact he doesn’t watch this shit. Neither does my husband, so one night I got drunk, hit some of that mouthwash to just feel alive, and thought: Fuck. Did I marry my father?
But then I started cleaning out my ass for my husband to just go to town on, and I was like no, I have to be fine; my father would never be okay with this. Until I realized Eddie was at a conference and I was home alone, and I was like, shit, I did marry my father. Put on “Cat’s In The Cradle” and ordered some Taco Bell. Cried into a crunch wrap supreme.
You know it’s bad when you pull out the Taco Bell, especially the door-dash Taco Bell. A few years ago I stopped my on again off again thing with her. I’d eat her on the road, but then I realized shitting before every show wasn’t great. Cleaning out your bowels doesn’t work very well if it just ends up with your boxers disgusting. Also, its kinda a dick move to the intern that does my laundry.
I switched to Mickey D’s. Now, that man gets me. The ice cream machine was broken, but I too was a broken man. That is, until I started dating my husband.
He called me that night, while I was listening to “Cat’s In The Cradle” on repeat, and told me he loved me. Aww... And then told me that when he was coming home that wedding ring was coming off so his fingers could go right up my ass. I was so touched. This was a man who left work to go home sick one day because a dude pretended to puke in his cubicle, and now he’s calling me to tell me how bad he wants to put his hands, that he eats with, after washing meticulously, up my poop hole.
Fuck, that’s love.
Much like at the end of a preacher’s homily, I feel like I should end by imparting you all with a lesson. Moral of the story, guys: go gay, marry a hypocondriac, the world can be yours.
Thank you all for coming tonight. I hope you all enjoyed my TED Talk. If not, go fuck yourselves. I’m Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier, Goodnight.